In West Chicago, there is one of the friendliest pubs I ever had the pleasure of stumbling upon. I initially went there to watch a Chicago Bears game with a friend and found the best time one could have around strangers. When the game began, you would not believe the free food spread that was placed out for the patrons and we ate and drank until we could not eat any more…then pizza arrived! This was such a great atmosphere where everyone treated us like old friends. The fun and the joking around made it a great day for me. Matt Goetz, the owner of Cobblestone Road Tavern has to be the most personal people I ever met. Even though I had never been there, I felt like “one of the gang” due to his personality. (The menu of food they serve…let me put it this way, it smelled so good the day I was there for the game, I had gone back a couple other times before the investigation just to have one of their burgers, then again went back for more. GREAT FOOD is served there!) When I left that day, I felt like it was the best time I had since being in Chicago.

The Bears won the game, the food was great, and the people were friendly. What a great mix of characters to come across! I made so many new friends there that day. Matt is among my favorites though. He is impressively full of information about history and stones it made my head fill with eagerness to hear more. I simply could not get enough! The conversation turned to what I do... researching the paranormal.

Matt began telling me of people claiming to have experiences there, and some of his own that he had doubts about. He said he simply just brushed them off and disregarded giving it any more thoughts. While we were discussing this, I had my hand leaning on a cooler near the back door, Matt had suggested going and having a seat in one of the booths to continue having our conversation. As I lifted my hand, I felt a large hand grab mine and pull towards the basement stairs. I was so excited to have that happen that I told Matt “we need to investigate the building”!

Matt expressed his concerns “if this was real, I did not want to anger any spirits”. As he said that, I do not think he was really believing in spirits, but was curious just the same. He agreed to allow me to bring in a team of investigators to try to capture any evidence of activity.

We agreed to a date to do this.January 25, 2011 a Tuesday as to not interrupt his customers as best we could.

Investigators were:Marcia Bezanis Mack from Chicago Paranormal Seekers (CPS)Angie Edwards, Mark Edward, and Jim Heater from Champaign Illinois Paranormal Society (CHIPS)Teresa Williams from Small Town Paranormal (STP)note: all teams are members of Small Town Paranormal Family (STPF)

Activity:Shadow figures seen by multiple people,Footsteps with no known source,Objects moved,Voices heardAnd of course... my personal experience of my hand being grabbed,Matt also had a picture of a group of men sitting in a booth in the dining area that was taken years ago by a Polaroid camera that had an awesome anomalies above their heads

History of the building was done by Julie Doherty. (independent investigator)Her report was:

“The building was built in the 1850's to 1860's, by the Ahern family. It was called the “Old Stone Jug” and the Ahern family owned it until 1870 when it was sold to Michael Heinz. It is a two-story building and it was at one point, a bar on top of a bar. In 1949, the second level opened up to the railroad tracks and the railroad workers used to get off and eat and drink there as well as housing.

This went on until about 1920's-1930's, then, it was just a bar on the main street level.

There were no reported deaths that are known of, but with the railroad right next the building you could have had people who were hit by the railcars or the workers, after drinking could have ended up in a fight or something.”

A special ‘thank you’ goes to Julie for helping with the history research.

The investigation:

When we arrived, Matt as usual, was chatting with a friend outside the Cobblestone Road Tavern entrance and greeted us with a smile. The man he was chatting with excused himself so we could get started. Matt gave us all the low down of things (which you just read) and we went inside to figure out our game plan and begin set up.

Jim Heater and Mark Edwards had figured out where the DVR cameras should be placed, and set up the cameras to start recording. They had set up one in the basement at the bottom of the stairs to the basement, and one at the top of the stairs where I had my hand grabbed. Another camera near the entrance facing down the bar towards the staircase, and one in the dining area. Marcia Bezanis Mack had captured what we feel is a shadow figure sitting between three customers at a table. We attempted multiple times to try to re-create the shadow, but could not. Marcia shared the photo with Matt and he had shared it in turn with the gentlemen that were at the table. They found it exciting to see the picture as well as Matt was.

Angie Edwards was busy running a scan on the building to get readings with the mel-meter, and was getting strange readings in the doorway of the bar and dining area ranging from 0.3 up to 0.5 and continually fluxuating while in the doorway. Source of the readings could not be determined as they would be there, then they wouldn’t.I began to do a pendulum session and got a “no, don’t want to communicate response” immediately. I verified the answer with a “can you make it swing North to South” movement, and it did. I was putting my pendulum away when I remembered a conversation with Angie and Mark Edwards prior to the investigation where Angie suggested having Mark (who loves his Harley Davidson and knew the ‘biker lingo’ for models and engines) ask some questions during the EVP session due to the fact some of the patrons believe a customer’s spirit from a few years back is probably hanging around there. So with that information, I had re-started a pendulum session telling it Mark wanted to talk to him. I said “ I am going to whip out my pendulum and let Mark ask you some questions” right after saying that, we caught an EVP saying “yeah”. During Marks questions, my pendulum gave strong responses to his questions. We were fortunate to have sitting with us a man named Jeff Krawczykowski for the session who knew the man who is believed to be there in spirit. Jeff tossed in a couple of personal questions to help us verify who we were communicating with. He even attempted to trick the pendulum by asking questions he knew not to be true. The pendulum gave all the right answers to him, as he was convinced, knowing I did not know anything of the spirit in question.

Jeff left soon after that excited about the conversation.

Referencing to the hand that grabbed mine, Jim Heater began an EVP session at the top of the stairs. Mark Edwards was taking photographs during the session. Mark caught what we believe to be an anomalies movement when Jim left the stairs and Angie Edwards began hers. The series of pictures show the movement of this towards Angie. Mark had asked any spirits to come into the shots to have it’s picture taken. The series of movement ended with Angie feeling something touch her head. The anomalties never showed up after the touch.

Shortly after Angie felt the touch, Marcia Bezanis Mack entered the stairwell and also was touched on her shoulder with a slight downward force. These two experiences validated my personal experience.

During this whole investigation, the DVR system acted up by continually shutting down and starting back up on it’s own. A activity Jim Heater said never happened before. Our conclusion of the Cobblestone Road Tavern:

There is defiantly something there. It is friendly and playful, as one investigator put it… “like a Cheers with a ghost.” At no time did we feel it meant anyone any harm, It just likes the people, food, and drink! (I think it likes the prices too…I did!) And the customer experience I have to put out there, is a must if you are ever in West Chicago!(we will be doing a second investigation here soon for more documentation)-Teresa Williams